If you have been to India and missed on attend any one of
the big fat Indian weddings then you surely missed a lot. India is the melting
pot for all traditions and rituals. What any Indian woman has dreamt from her
childhood is, how grand would her wedding be and how she would look like a doll
in her wedding dress.
The preparations for an average Indian wedding starts as far
as a year before the wedding date. Most hectic are the final two months before
the wedding, the last mile is the most chaotic. The dust settles only a week
after a week-long marriage is completed.
There is also a long tradition of matching the stars of the
bride and the groom before they actually meet. India is more focused on the
compatibility of the stars in the heaven then with the compatibility of the boy
and the girl. Arrange marriages are a big preference in India.
The Indian marriages are getting expensive day on day. The
amount of money spent on a single wedding can reach to an obscene figure of
crores in the Indian market. The jewelry has to be exquisite the clothes have
to be unique and in vogue. The gifts need to be lavish. The attendees of the
auspicious occasion need to come in different attire for every ritual and the
rituals end for a couple of days and sometimes stretching to weeks.
The Indian weeding is a resemblance of the celebrations that
an average household in India attaches to the occasion of marriage. All
relatives need to be flown in to attend the wedding and shower their blessings
on the bride and the groom.
Indian Marriages are a series of events best summarized in
five days. The first day of celebration is called the “Mehndi Night”. On that
day the relatives put Henna, a kind of tattoo, on the palms of the bride and
themselves.
The second day is called the “Mangal Snan” – The holy bath
in which relatives help the bride and the groom put Haldi (Turmeric) on the
hands and legs of the bride and the groom. This is done to ward off any evil
sights from them and also to give their body strength to endure the week long
events in front of them.
The third day is the night of marriage when the groom walks
up to the brides place and marries her.
The fourth day is when the groom carries the bride back to
his house and the girl leaves the house of her parents.
The fifth day is the Wedding Reception day when the Grooms
family members invite all their relatives and neighbors to announce that the marriage
has culminated.
